The position was as an imagery analyst, not as a secret agent. It wouldn't have been that much different from the work I was doing at the oil company, I would have probably wound up inventorying Russian wheat production and rail networks instead of mapping surface geomorphology and modeling geological structures. The reason I didn't take the CIA job was because I got a better offer from a Silicon Valley outfit doing imagery analysis software development and which sold image processing systems to others, both my old company AND the CIA. This job required clearances too. It was a pretty incestuous business in those days, there were only a few hundred people in the country doing that sort of work, and most knew each other.

As far as how my opinions and loyalties are concerned, they were pretty much set by the time I got out of high school, and have changed little to this day. My life experiences on the fringes of the spook world provided no new revelations or epiphanies, they just reinforced what I had already come to accept on my own. I learned real early that just because WE're no saints doesn't mean THEY are. I'm no flag-waving patriot, but in the real world you have to pick sides, and I picked the one that I thought better for everyone, myself included, in the long run.

If you follow my posts here you've probably noticed I can be bitterly critical of my side and sometimes see the justifications for the other side, but I have no misgivings about which side I'm on. This is also why I have so little patience with the "my country right or wrong" point of view. There is no right or wrong, just the lesser of two evils, and the world is shades of grey, not black and white. If you don't understand this, your loyalties will be guided by your heart, not your head, and the first time you are disappointed or lied to you'll switch sides like a fickle, scorned lover. Either that, or you'll just refuse to believe you're beilng lied to...

BTW, the last time I held a security clearance was 15 years ago, and believe me, the stuff I was working on then was pretty dull and uninteresting. I wouldn't have to kill you if you learned my secrets, they would probably just bore you to death.